Partnering with our clients is always a great experience because we love the interactions and working together as a team for a common goal. There is typically excitement in the beginning as we all prepare to dive into a new adventure together. Although, it’s very important that projects are structured and set up for success!
By being set up for success and continuing down that path will keep momentum going and ensure positivity to the mission of the project. How this is done in a Salesforce.com (SFDC) project is different that most traditional software development projects.
Traditional vs. Salesforce.com
Traditional software development projects can vary in size and complexity depending on goals. The business partner, the stakeholder of the project, typically sets those goals. These traditional projects can have a range of the type of stakeholders. They can be any variety of departments in an organization such as
- Accounting
- Finance
- Loss Prevention
- Payroll
- Human Resources
- Marketing
- Sales
- Call Centers
Those organizations know their business domain well and should not be expected to be knowledge experts in information technology and software development. Business departments expect IT solutions to just work, and they have enough of their time spent keeping up with their day to day challenges and goals to meet to get bogged down in IT terminology, software development lifecycle, technology security concerns, or platform issues with operating systems or browsers.
SFDC projects on the other hand are usually, but not always, limited toward the 3 main focuses of the Salesforce.com platform which are sales, marketing, and customer service. Those Salesforce.com development consultants, like us at 6 Street Technologies, deal with these groups on a regular basis and understand their culture, needs, and challenges.
Designing software to be a joy to use
We also know they are far removed from the intricate details of software development. They aren’t concerned with concepts such as databases, networking, infrastructure and so on. They have a job to do and they do it well. They need software to empower them and not be in the way. The software should be something they enjoy using, like they enjoy using online tools such as Facebook or Gmail.
The best part of SFDC projects is they are set up for success with these concepts like empowerment and joy of use in mind. Salesforce.com is very much social in the way Facebook is social. SFDC projects focus on bringing business functionality and power to the fingertips of those who use it in the way a wand brings power to a wizard. Dealing with large teams to focus on building and maintaining an infrastructure with networks, databases, and servers is not necessary. You deal with one level: the business level.
Starting it off
This is the introduction to a series of posts focusing on customer engagement on SFDC projects and how they differ from traditional software development projects. Gone are the days of the sales, marketing, and service department leaders being stuck in project meetings trying to understand information technology jargon, workarounds, and struggles. Welcome to the days of working directly with bringing desired business processes and workflows into your organization and talking on a level you understand. Just as tablets and mobile phones bring the power of computing to the tip of your finger, SFDC brings the power of change to the everest of your imagination.
Series Benefits
This upcoming series will benefit the reader greatly by showing them how SFDC projects, especially by 6 Street Technologies, are executed to be set up for success. You will see how this is radically different than most projects outside of SFDC function and how a company like ours can engage directly with the stakeholders without any sort of intermediary. We use fast iterative processes so that business functionality can get in the hands of those who need it quickly with little cost compared to standard software development projects.
We will be covering topics such as:
- Differences of standard projects vs. Salesforce.com development projects
- Large standard teams vs. lean SFDC teams
- Faster time to market with an iterative methodology
- Bringing the focus back to empowering the business
By the end of the series you will be well informed of the structure and benefits of having your next project on Salesforce.com and how we at 6 Street Technologies work to guide these projects to success. We invite you to continue to follow the series and engage with us by commenting below and engaging with us on Facebook or LinkedIn.